


The Salt in the Sea

by Betsubara



Series: The Salt in the Sea [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Big bro Axel, Dysfunctional Family, Everyone Needs A Hug, Family, Feels, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Isa is Bad at Feelings (Kingdom Hearts), Lea Is Bad at Feelings (Kingdom Hearts), Protective Axel, Romance isn't really the focus, Sea Salt Family (Kingdom Hearts), Xion protection squad, all the feels bro, god save these children, sea salt trio, where u at
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:49:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29632812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Betsubara/pseuds/Betsubara
Summary: "He seems perfectly stable, with no signs of any permanent or irreversible damage, except for his scar." He looked up from his clipboard of medical notes and smiled sheepishly, "I know we agreed to contact you as soon as we found him. But if I'm being sincere, we could really use your help."Lea hesitantly took his eyes off Isa, and tilted his head in confusion."With what?""When he wakes up," Ienzo says slowly, as if considering his words, "I have a feeling he won't want to talk much. I know talking about my experiences was, a little difficult at first."The sound of his voice dulls under the sound of rusted clogs turning in Lea's head."So, you want me to try and talk to him?"Ienzo nodded, "It seemed like the best choice; if Isa was to open up to anyone, it would most certainly be you."ORIsa has a lot to make up for, now that he's a somebody again. Lea is willing to give him a chance.
Relationships: Axel & Saïx (Kingdom Hearts), Isa & Lea & Roxas & Xion (Kingdom Hearts), Isa/Lea (Kingdom Hearts), Lea & Roxas & Xion (Kingdom Hearts), Lea & Roxas (Kingdom Hearts), Lea & Xion (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: The Salt in the Sea [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2177292
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	The Salt in the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Kingdom Hearts! Ah you marvellous piece of garbage you– I hate how deep I've fallen.

Radiant Garden didn't really feel like home after so many years. The clouds seemed to have vanished, the sky a bright and empty blue that radiated a brilliant light; Lea had to yank his collar away from his neck in feverish frustration. The flowers were coloured different, long replaced with newer species and highlighted in the summer day with harsh yellows. The buildings too, had been rebuilt and repainted into landmarks he couldn't recognize, and the loud laughter of children had a strange hum to it. Even the air had a foreign smelling freshness.

Lea, with his lanky stature and vivid red hair, stuck out more than he ever did as a child. His bold choice of colours, although distracting, placed him neatly into Radiant Gardens natural hue of brightness. Now, in a black coat he couldn't quite will himself to take off, and with a small frown stuck to his face, he looked so incredibly out of balance with the rest of the world. As if he'd gone back in time to a place he no longer belongs.

Lea took a deep breath, one of brevity and self-assurance, and forced some confidence into his steps as he took powerful strides forward. He remembered the road to the castle being so much longer, its uphill climb seeming like an adventure in of itself. When he could only walk, he would stare up at it in wonder, his hand in his mothers as she nudged him past the trail. When he could run, he would race off with a grin, waving his arms frantically at his best friend trailing behind. His amused smile left an imprint in his mind, something he knew even then to be cherished. It was like looking up at a completely blank night sky, and finding a single star.

At least now it did– cherishing something while it was still in your grasp was very different, after all, to when it's gone.

As he was a decade later with longer legs and a much bigger sense of urgency, he made it onto the castle doorstep in less than ten minutes. He waved sluggishly at Dilan as he passed him, and the bright-eyed man gave him a simple nod and smile in reply.

"Sup, Dilan."

"It's good to see you, Lea." He breathed out in a deep accented voice. As he spoke, he walked ahead towards the grand door at the castles entrance, and granted Lea excess with a quick pull on its hinge. Lea grinned.

"Thanks," he laughed, "Sorry for turning up so suddenly."  
"It's no trouble, now go on."

He stepped into the hallway quickly, his feet marching forward with a pace his head wasn't ready for. The door shut abruptly, and suddenly he was in a labyrinth with walls all the same immovable shape and bland beige in colour. For Lea, they wobbled in his peripheral, and he stumbled along with them with every turned corner. In the past, he could walk this path with his eyes closed, in fact you could spin him around until his eyes fell out, and he would still whistle a tune on his way without a care. Now every step felt wrong, like he was walking into a lion's den without a weapon, or a doctor's appointment expecting bad news. His palms were sweaty, his breath hitched at every twist of the walls even knowing he was nowhere near the lab.

The lab. The room was too bright, too easily tainted with memories that filled Lea's lungs with soot and left him to choke. Medically cleaned floors and stern, emotionless expressions– as a child nothing was worse. With Isa by his side it made everything a little better, his arm warm next to him and his smile kinder than anything else present. And he would give comfort back just the same, with a teasing remark or an outstretched hand. Lea wasn't sure it'd be much of a comfort anymore.

Isa didn't smile at him at all when they were nobodies. Lea didn't smile either, but he knew if Isa needed one he would've plastered one onto his face all the same. He never needed it though, not a smile or a teasing remark or an outstretched hand. Lea couldn't remember the day he thought he wasn't needed anymore, or the day his remarks turned more hurtful or stopped altogether. If Isa missed him so much, why didn't he even try to express it? If he was jealous, why did it take him dying in Lea's arms to finally say something? They seemed like lies, and after years of believing the opposite, he couldn't help but think they were.

With one last turn, a new row of doors appeared in front of him in the form of another horribly long corridor. The first door on the right was ajar, with light pooling out of its entrance. The red head straightened his back and took a deep breath in until his lungs felt hollow. He didn't breathe out until he was close enough to hear nonsensical humming coming from the open door, where he sighed shakily, his diaphragm creaking.

Now or never. If he hesitated his legs would take him in anyway, and he'd ruin the white floors if the rest of him was suddenly being dragged across it.

He peeked into the room slowly, a nervous shiver travelling up his spine like a cold lightning bolt, to see Ienzo in the middle of the room with a clipboard and pen in his hand. The lab looked no different from the last time Lea had stepped in, with horrible white walls and large machinery that didn't look the vaguest bit inviting. But there was a ragged wooden chair placed next to the bed, a coffee mug on the side with 'best dad' on the side of it, and a vase with an abundance of peonies. It made Lea snort a little, and Ienzo turned sharply at the sound.

"Lea! I was wondering when you'd arrive." Ienzo smiled. His hair was shorter since Lea last saw him, just brushing the boys shoulders. His eyes had a gentled compassion to them, something that spoke of peacefulness and ease.

"Good to see you too," He smirked back, it quickly vanished when the door closed behind him,  
"How is he?"

Next to the peonies, on the small bed, was Isa's lifeless body. His eyes were closed, eyelashes brushing against his cheeks and lips pulled into an unconscious frown. An iv was attached to his wrist, and a thin, withered blanket was drawn over his legs and stomach, the same horrible blank white that the rest of the room was. Only Isa's hair seemed any different, if a little dull and flat as it fell about the pillow and down over his shoulders. His chest drifted up and down aggravatingly slow, like it'd stop any moment now without any warning or fanfare. Lea didn't dare to look away, the shiver that ran up his spine earlier coagulating in his gut.

Ienzo hummed, and peered at the still form clueless to Lea's plight. He held a clipboard up to his face with stern eyes.

"He seems perfectly stable, with no signs of any permanent or irreversible damage, except for the scar on his face." He looked up from his clipboard of medical notes and smiled sheepishly, "I know we agreed to contact you as soon as we found him. But if I'm being sincere, we could really use your help."

Lea hesitantly took his eyes off Isa, and tilted his head in confusion.  
"With what?"

Ienzo shifted where he stood, refusing to look Lea in the eye. For a small moment, the redhead gnawed his bottom lip harshly, wondering if he's somehow still intimidating when feeling like a stranger in his own skin. He prayed to kingdom hearts the poor boy had forgotten about castle oblivion, about how Lea ordered and watched him be strangled to death with a sly grin on his face, but he knew it was unlikely. Lea himself would never forget the last choked screams he let out before the boys vocal cords stopped working, it haunted him.

He stopped biting down when the boys eyes shifted back to him, softening into something apologetic, as if nothing ever happened.

"When he wakes up," Ienzo says slowly, as if considering his words, "I have a feeling he won't want to talk much. I know talking about my experiences was, a little difficult at first."

The sound of his voice dulls under the sound of rusted clogs turning in Lea's head.  
"So, you want me to try and talk to him?"

Ienzo nodded, "It seemed like the best choice; if Isa was to open up to anyone, it would most certainly be you."

Lea stood a little stricken at that. Isa had been his best friend for so many years, but after all that had happened, those years had been eclipsed by how many they had been cold and distant. The one too many conversations they had as nobodies could be considered strange compared to the others, but they were by no means friendly. Their conversations were clipped by a hostility and distance that wasn't there before. Something Lea was initially scared of, but became something he used willingly. If anything, a part of Lea wondered if Isa would want to open up to him at all. Acceptance was far different to friendship after all, their heart-to-heart in the keyblade graveyard meant nothing in the long run of heartache they've both had to endure.

"What if he doesn't?" Lea said, then realised immediately after how sudden his comment was. Ienzo didn't seem bothered, his eyes and hands preoccupied fiddling with the iv stand and needle in Isa's inner wrist. His body didn't even twitch.

"Then you'll have to hope something convinces him. It's never good to bottle things up, though I'm sure you know that."

A nobodies' existence seemed to revolve around that whole notion, yes. Being told you can't feel while desperately searching for any way to save your best friends was a little backwards, and yet Lea felt that agonising desperation all the same, even if he was taught not to recognise it. The irony, however, that Isa was even more capable of doing such a thing now as a somebody compared to his stone-cold nobody self didn't escape Lea at all.

"Is he going to wake up anytime soon?" he said.

"I'm unsure, it could be in a couple of hours or a couple of days."

"Should I leave?"

"You can stay."

And so Lea sat heavily on the old chair, far lower down than he expected, and wobbled slightly as one of the chair legs creaked under his weight. He watched the blanket rise and fall with Isa's breathing, and sighed.

__________

Roxas and Xion had been adamant Lea talked about Isa. At first, he avoided their questions with a dismissive hand and a quick subject change, but they never stopped asking and eventually Lea gave in. Whether they had seen the distant look in his eyes, the longing buried underneath all the joy and gratitude for them, Lea didn't know. But hoping for it to just be simple curiosity would be too much; the consequences of hoping for a chance at friendship, the chance the two parts of his life he so desperately wished to keep and cherish could become whole. All that hope would crush him like a paper bag if anything went wrong.

But, as they asked, he told them. He told them about the little smiles that made the sun blush, how her flustered rays would shine across his jaw and along the bridge of his nose, his neck, his fingertips, his blueberry hair that swished just above his shoulders. How it made his heart skip a beat in his chest. He told them about the comfort he gave, how his presence made the night air flow smoother and the robust noise of thunder quieten into an ambient hum. How sometimes the world would still, and other times it would roar to life with him as the eye of the storm.

They nodded on with interest, curious smiles spread across their faces when Lea told them of thunderous nights and sleepovers, of rushing water and uncontrollable laughter, of sticky sea salt flavoured fingers entwined together and sunrises.  
Roxas laughed gleefully, his eyes sparkling with certainty and the red of the sunset in front of them, "Did he like sunrises?"

Lea grinned, "Heck yeah he did, we used to watch them all the time!"

Xion sat up, engrossed. "In Radiant Garden?"

"Yeah! There was this amazing spot just to the edge of town," Lea smiled absently at the memory, "a patch of grass with loads of flowers and the best spot of the sky."

"This one time, Ma made me do all these chores, so I missed the sunset. But Isa waited for me there anyway and told me we can watch the stars instead." Lea chuckled to himself, "He probably enjoyed that more than watching the sunrise."

"Can we go see it?"

Lea nodded, "It's not as good as the sunset here though."

Roxas scoffed playfully, "Of course not!"

Xion giggled in agreement, smiling up at Lea with twinkling eyes, "I wanna meet Isa!" She grinned and Roxas nodded, nibbling at the end of his wooden ice cream stick, "Isa sounds so much nicer than the Saix we knew."

Lea felt his face tighten, all the muscles in his body wound up like a jack 'n' the box. The hope he desperately tried to dwindle suddenly jumped up into a roaring flame and spread uncontrollably.

"Are you sure?" He asked, "I'd understand if you weren't comfortable seeing him, you know?"

Xion spoke with a fierce determination that copied the look in Roxas' eyes, "He's important to you Axel, so we want to try."

Roxas laughed again, this time bittersweet. "Sora always did say the heart has room for more." He watched the sun set slowly, and the same rays glazed both his and Xion's faces in a way completely different to Isa's face so long ago, the rubies and tanned oranges lighting up the sparkles in their eyes. Even so, it brought about the same giddy smile on Lea's face.

"Okay." He sighed, "When Isa comes back, I'll introduce you to him."

The big, bright grins that stretched across their faces were still at the forefront of Lea's mind, as he stood, with a freshly made coffee, in the doorway of the castle lab with a grim expression.

The lights had been dimmed, drawing a curtain over the room like the hills in an early morning sunrise, and yet white walls still penetrated Lea's eyes as ugly reminders of the past. Ienzo had left documents sprawled haphazardly across the computer screens, piled up over the keyboard and across the table. A few had fallen onto the clinically polished floors, trailing out towards Lea and the bed in the centre of the right wall.

Isa, in all his dishevelled glory, sat uncomfortably on the edge of the laboratory bed, staring at his hands. His organisation coat was bunched up around his arms and legs, drooping down over his shoulders and looking weirdly big on him without Saix's powerful stance. His hair was a mess of curling blue waves that fell about his face, with bright strands twisting around his nose and scar. Even with his heart, it stretched over his brow in a deformed, distorted cross. As if now too big for his face, accentuated by softer eyes and a gentler frown lacking any of the spite from just a week before.

Leant over his knees in a troubled stance, he sighed breathlessly. Still, silent, and staring at his shoes with unseeing eyes. Lea watched him wring his fingers together absent-mindedly, then twiddle his thumbs.

"Isa." He called, the man snapped out his daze and sat up like he'd been shot.

"Lea." He answered, with wide surprised eyes and clenching fists. The red head walked the space between them quickly, the door drifting shut behind him. He stopped abruptly in the middle of his strides, choosing instead to stand just short of the bed and just out of reach. Isa stared him down with shining turquoise eyes, and the image of the twinkling, sunset cast irises in his memories hit him full force. The gleam was still there, underneath it all, Lea could tell, but it was overshadowed by something that made him feel vaguely nauseous. Almost vacant eyes were what was staring at him.

"How long have you been standing there?" Isa suddenly said, with such abruptness it sounded like a careless statement more than a question.

Lea sighed, understanding anyway a reply was wanted, "A couple seconds."

"How long have I been asleep?"

Lea shrugged, "Since I've been here, about 4 hours."

"Did you want something?"

"Like to see if you're okay?"

He kept staring with no emotion on his face, his hands uncurled and abandoned in his lap. Lea opened his mouth, to crack a joke or smile or anything to smother the sharp edge of the atmosphere. Until suddenly the staring stopped, and those eyes blue like sea salt warped with the tide. He snapped his mouth shut again like a warbling fish.

"Where are Roxas and Xion?" Isa said, his voice croaked with lack of use, and his focus fell back to his hands.

"In Twilight Town, figured you wouldn't want to see them."

"Do they want to see me?"

Lea felt the world pause, those words filtered in and out of his head. Xion and Roxas never stopped asking questions about Lea's old friend. From old jokes to old memories to old settings stored in Lea's mind; they wanted to know everything there was to know about the boy called Isa.

Was that unhealthy? A sudden wrench in his gut told him that was unhealthy. Saïx had done nothing but torment the three of them in the times of the organisation. Even if Lea could forgive those passive-aggressive comments, those cold stares void of emotion, those golden eyes– he couldn't forgive the wrongs towards his friends. He didn't expect Xion and Roxas to either, hell he'd be hard-pressed to want them to, even with that cracking fracture in his chest that stung a little more with every mention of that bluebell hair with those matching bluebell eyes.

But this was Isa. And Isa was a different person to Saïx, or they wanted to believe he was. At least enough of one that they gave him a chance.

He walked the final couple steps to the chair opposite Isa, falling into it much the same way as a couple of hours before. Isa sat up ramrod straight, his hands curling until his fingernails dug into his palms. The tide washed in all at once, and a single tear fell from each of his eyes. Lea couldn't bring himself to brush them away, not when in the past it was all Isa would ever do for him. He could only look on in awe for a moment, and bite his lip until his own emotions stopped surging.

"I wanted to see you, Isa."

"Why?"

Lea hesitated, "well, because you mean a lot to me."

"Even now? After all I've done to you, and the other two?"

"They told me they wanted to meet you."

Isa tutted to himself, "They've met me plenty already."

"You know that's not true."

With tears still stained on his cheeks, and misted eyes framed red, the older man looked Lea dead in the eye with an emotion finally clear under all the vacancy. Defeat.

"It is."

"Isa," Lea inched closer in his chair, and Isa looked at him like a regretful child, "you never know if you don't try, got it memorised?"

But Isa shook his head, and tilted back, away from Lea's smile. 

"I don't deserve it," He sighed, "I don't– I hurt so many people."

Something about that tickled him, a chuckle bubbling up alongside a thick bout of dizzying guilt. The list of people Lea had hurt seemed so much bigger than anyone else's in his own mind. Ienzo and Even, two of the people he murdered in cold blood, were just in the other room.

He should tell them Isa woke up, Ienzo would want to look him over. It didn't feel like a hard task a couple of moments ago, but now that it was in his head, now he had a moment to wonder how scary it must be to slowly feel your life drain out of you while a maniac stands and stares with the grin of a kid at Christmas. And now that maniac was just a minute away, ready to rip your heart out again at any second.

"Lea?" His voice wobbled, just as Lea's vision did, before the room snapped its fingers in his face.

"Yeah, you did."

Isa recoiled, his eye's dulled into grey, and once again Lea realised how suddenly he spoke.

"But so did I! I hurt people too," inhaling felt a little harder, "so many people, like you."

Isa's silence was answer enough. The darkness in his eyes refused to shift, like a blackened sky, and Lea had scared the stars away. His next exhale was long overdue.

"And they forgave me, at least I think they did. Kairi kept telling me to stop apologising, back when we were training. She probably just did it to make me feel better, but I guess that means she cares? And Roxas and Xion don't seem mad at me, so–" He was rambling now, he knew it, the up-tilt in Isa's face told him he knew it too.

"Whatever." Lea sighed, "What I mean is, you deserve a chance too." 

"You're different, at least you made up for what you'd done."

His insides turned hot at that– nothing Lea will ever do will make up for murdering someone. Not to him; repenting isn't the same as apologising, and apologising will never be enough.

He growled, leaning closer, "you can't keep being mad at yourself!"

Isa's tears stopped a while ago, only painted in subtle marks down his cheeks. It made it no less intimidating when he raised an eyebrow at his old friend, as if looking into his soul. He'd always been able to do that, with pinpoint accuracy, strip away any jokes or threats and get to the problem underneath. Lea fought the urge to squirm away.

"Look, you deserve a chance just as much as I do, okay?" His tongue felt too big in his mouth, like the words felt wrong.

Isa took it in stride, and finally reached up to swipe the wet tracks off his face. He looked at his hand in confusion, but the weird wash of relief relaxed the red-heads shoulders.

"What about Roxas and Xion?"

"What about them?"

"Surely they wouldn't want to be near me."

Deliberating the same thing for the millionth time made you question it more, apparently. Still, he trusted his friends.

"They won't stop asking about you, man." Lea said, "That's enough to tell you they're willing to try."

Isa still looked lost, but a small smile pulled at his mouth.

"I hope so."

A clatter from the other room interrupted the quiet, the sound of footsteps and ruffling papers more clear than before. Solemn, Lea realised he would have to tell Ienzo about Isa, even if all the talking dwindled his energy, and his coffee had long ago gone cold. Being inside the castle at all churned his gut, but at least Isa was right in front of him, just as before.

He sighed, putting his hands on his knees and pushing himself off the chair with a herculean effort.

Isa watched him warily, "Where are you going?"

"To talk to Ienzo, he should probably check you."

His blue eyes searched the room, possibly for the thousandth time, Lea had no idea how long the other was staring at white walls after he'd left to get some coffee. The peonies stood tall next to him were still the only shred of colour, a pretty lavender. They went well with Isa's eyes, as he caught sight of them, Lea wondered if the person who picked them knew that.

"Hey," He began, hesitant, "I know this is a lot–"

"Just say it, Lea."

His face warmed, "well, if you don't have anywhere else to stay, you can come back to twilight town with me."

Isa seemed surprised, "You're not staying in Radiant Garden?"

He shuffled his feet a little, shifting his weight, and rubbed the back of his neck.

"It's– It doesn't really feel..."

Isa nodded slowly. The Radiant Garden they both grew up in disappeared years ago, it was unlikely anything tied them to it.

He continued, "But, I mean, I'm not trying to force you or anything."

"No, I don't have any reason to stay."

His knees wobbled, that fire from before burned in his chest, that strong overwhelming hope. Roxas and Xion, his best friends of now, and Isa, his best friend of the past. If he was alllowed to hold onto it, just a little, he would grasp it with all his strength.

"Right, okay." He laughed, giddy, and made his way towards the door.

"Wait, Lea." Isa called, and Lea watched his hand flicker in the air for a moment, reached out towards him, before he let it drop. His eyes, still dull compared to the bright blue in Lea's memories, trailed down the black coat and back up to the red-heads eyes.

"Hm?"

"Why– why are you doing this for me?"

He turned away from the door, allowed a cheeky grin emerge, and watched in glee as Isa gave him a similarly amused look in return.

"I told you didn't I? I'm dragging you home too."

**Author's Note:**

> Look forward to next time guys!! Fingers crossed it shouldn't be too long, but with my track record you can never be certain...  
> Feel free to leave any comments! I'll happily read them xx


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